The Sutton family held this land from at least 1307, maintaining their grip on two cartrons in Carnagh parish for nearly three centuries before the property passed to Matthew Forde sometime before 1641. By the time Cromwell’s surveyors arrived in 1654, they recorded Forde’s castle as already in disrepair, alongside 360 acres spanning the townlands of Aclamon and Tellarought. The tower sits in a shallow valley, with a small stream flowing nearby and an old road running northeast to southwest just to its south.

The tower house itself is a compact fortification, measuring roughly 7.4 metres north to south and 7.3 metres east to west, built with carefully dressed corner stones and a defensive base batter that slopes outward to deter attackers. Its defensive features are immediately apparent; murder holes guard both the interior and exterior of the now-destroyed western entrance, allowing defenders to rain down projectiles on unwelcome visitors. The ground floor chamber, accessed through a small entrance lobby, is a dark, windowless space with recesses built into each wall, though the eastern wall has since collapsed. A spiral staircase winds upward through the northern wall, protected at its base by another murder hole, leading visitors through increasingly damaged upper floors that once housed living quarters complete with fireplaces, windows with stone seats, and even corbels that supported wooden floors.

Despite its ruined state, the tower reveals sophisticated medieval architecture designed for both defence and domestic comfort. The first floor sits beneath a sturdy barrel vault running north to south, whilst the second floor above shows evidence of a fireplace and multiple windows, though curiously no garderobe. The defensive mindset of its builders is evident throughout; recesses at strategic angles allowed defenders to command the murder holes below, whilst a complex system of mural and newel stairs provided multiple routes between floors. The topmost level, now completely destroyed, once featured a wall walk and parapet from which sentries could survey the surrounding countryside. Today, with its southern wall breached at ground level and its southeastern corner collapsed above the vault, the tower stands as a testament to the turbulent history of Anglo-Norman and Gaelic Ireland, when even domestic buildings needed to double as fortresses.